WALL Street shares skidded overnight after disappointing quarterly results from Alcoa to kick off the corporate earnings season injected some caution in the market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 37.03 points (0.35 per cent) to 10,626.96 at the closing bell, as blue chips pulled back from a 15-month closing high Monday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite shed a hefty 30.14 points (1.30 per cent) to 2287.27 and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index retreated 10.80 points (0.94 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1136.18.
Many global markets were trading lower in response to Alcoa's results, seen as a harbinger of the earnings season and the health of the corporate sector.
The aluminum giant, the first of the blue chip companies to release financial results, reported a quarterly loss of $US277 million ($297.47 million).
Excluding one-time items the company posted a profit of one cent per share, well below market expectations.
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Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com said Alcoa failed to generate confidence either with its top line, revenues, or bottom line, profits.
"It was an inglorious start to the fourth quarter earnings reporting season, as Dow component Alcoa fell short of analysts' consensus earnings estimate,'' he said.
"Alcoa's top-line weakness speaks to the reality that the economic recovery isn't as strong as the stock market might lead one to think it is.''
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